AIDS Issues Update: Features:
Ryan White Legal Limbo
Health Resources and Services Administration is looking to clarify the immensely complicated Ryan White restrictions that deprive key legals services people living with AIDS.
“Ryan White funds may be used to pay for certain legal services. HRSA has received some requests for clarification of which legal services may be paid for with Ryan White funds. In light of the reauthorization of the Ryan White program, HRSA is taking a look at all of our policies – including the policy regarding “allowable services” (which includes legal services). We are currently reviewing the “allowable services” document, and plan to re-issue it in the very near future,” said HRSA spokesperson David Bowman.
The Ryan White CARE Act provisions on legal services are quite vague. The law states, “Legal services are the provision of services to individuals with respect to powers of attorney, donot- resuscitate orders and interventions necessary to ensure access to eligible benefits, including discrimination or breach of confidentiality litigation as it relates to services eligible for funding under the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program. It does not include any legal services that arrange for guardianship or adoption of children after the death of their normal caregiver.”
Before the 2006 Ryan White reauthorization, jurisdictions were much looser regarding their interpretations of Ryan White legal services. But in 2006 HRSA announced they would be enforcing the policy, things got stricter. But the problem is, it’s unclear exactly what this law means, and up until now HRSA has declined specifics.
“The battle has been getting HRSA to make clear what is and isn’t allowable,” said Catherine Hanssens, the Center for HIV Law and Policy.
In New York, the Department of Health interpreted this vague language to mean that no one can use legal services for anything not expressly mentioned in that language. Starting in 2006, the grantee decided Ryan White legal funding couldn’t go towards immigration-related cases for clients with HIV/AIDS, or housing assistance that wasn’t directly related to discrimination. But as we all know, housing is crucial to the health of people with HIV. An appearance by a lawyer in court can be the difference between eviction or not. Ryan White services are particularly important because there are limited resources for poor people to receive legal services.
But it’s possible for the Ryan White law to be interpreted differently. While there are some jurisdictions that don’t even provide legal assistance, because the stringent Medicaid requirments cause more funding to be used for core medical services. But among those jurisdictions with legal services, there are examples of more leniency. In Philadelphia, the Ryan White grantee has taken a broader interpretation of the law, providing eviction assistance and other services for clients with HIV/AIDS, and hasn’t heard a peep from HRSA.
“Our basic wrap is anything but a parking ticket or a divorce, we’ll do it,” said Ronda Goldfein, executive director of the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, which receives $320,000 in Ryan White funding for legal services to provide for clients with HIV/AIDS. “We have consistently said to our grantee in Philadelphia that this a broad interpretation of the law. But our grantee has said ‘You guys are the legal professionals. You guys use your money any way we want.”
We’ll keep you posted on HRSA’s clarifications, and what it will mean for people living with HIV/AIDS.
Your inside source for in-depth activism news is updated daily by Staff Writer, Julie Turkewitz
